The U.S. firm must comply with a May ruling from the European Union's top court that enables citizens to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names.

Among links to vanish were stories on a soccer referee who resigned after a scandal in 2010, French office workers making post-it art, a couple having sex on a train and a lawyer facing a fraud trial.

At least three British media outlets, including the Guardian newspaper and public broadcaster BBC, said Google notified them search results in Europe wouldn't contain some links to their publications.

BBC Economics Editor Robert Peston said the removal of his 2007 blog post, which was critical of Merrill Lynch's then-CEO Stan O'Neal, means “to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people.”

The company is only starting to implement the ruling on the “right to be forgotten,” and so far the numbers are small: The Guardian cited six articles, the BBC said one critical blog entry was removed, while the Mail Online saw four articles hit. Several German media contacted Thursday said they had not yet received notifications from Google.

“It's not yet really clear what the magnitude of this is,” cautioned Joel Reidenberg of Fordham University, currently a visiting professor at Princeton University. “Google may be choosing to go overboard to essentially create a debate about censorship.”

The company said it had received more than 70,000 removal requests by the end of June. Each application on average seeks the removal of almost four links, meaning its experts have to individually evaluate more than a quarter-million pages.

Google doesn't explain the decision to remove a link or say who requested it. The company isn't disclosing how many appear to fall into areas the court specified as potentially objectionable: results that are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.”

The Mountain View, California, company finds itself in an uncomfortable position. It has no choice but to comply with the ruling by the EU top court, which can't be appealed, but many decisions to remove search results are likely to draw criticism.

“This is a new and evolving process for us,” Google spokesman Al Verney said Thursday. “We'll continue to listen to feedback and will also work with data protection authorities and others as we comply with the ruling.”